culture-negative endocarditis

culture-negative endocarditis

Cardiology Endocarditis in which a causative microorganism are not identified

culture-negative endocarditis

Infective endocarditis produced by organisms that do not quickly or readily grow in blood cultures, usually because their growth is masked by the previous use of antibiotics or because the causative organisms require special culture media or grow slowly in the laboratory. Mycoplasma, Ricksettsia, HACEK (an acronym for Haemophilus, Actinobacillus, Cardiobacterium, Eikenella, Kingella) organisms, and some fungi produce culture-negative endocarditis.

The modified Duke diagnostic criteria are heavily based upon positive blood cultures, and a low microbiologic yield from blood culture raises questions as to the validity of these criteria in diagnosing culture-negative endocarditis in developing countries.

Second, only 20 patients (13%) underwent transesophageal echocardiography; the prevalence of culture-negative endocarditis may have increased if TEE had been performed on all patients.

Culture-negative endocarditis continues to have a high prevalence in developing countries like Pakistan, largely due to prior antibiotic use before clinical presentation.

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